[BigJohn043]

I agree that not having the SAT shields universities from scrutiny and accusations of bias.  Given historic precedent, there is good reason to be suspicious of universities' motives here.  On the other hand, just because something can be reduced to a number doesn't mean that said number is an accurate measure of what you are trying to capture.  In fact, one thing about well measured variables like SAT is you can also measure the effect of factors that contribute to the scores.  There is, to give one example, a very strong correlation between household income and SAT score.





That's about a 400 point (~250 points scaled to 1600) between the highest and lowest family income levels.

Ultimately, I think how someone feels about schools having the increased flexibility that not using test scores affords them probably reflects whether they trust the schools to use that flexibility in a way that they approve or not.

BC

This is the least surprising chart ever.  In a modern society, intelligence is a key driver of success.  Intelligence is also highly inheritable.  It would be shocking if more successful families didn't have smarter kids who would do on average better on a test of intelligence like the SAT....

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And if we are going to have this discussion at least lets use the best data.  The UC systems commissioned a bunch of their professors to examine their data.  Here is the resulting study:

https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-resea...report.pdf

The short answer is that SATs are predictive of college outcomes after taking into account HS GPAs.  In fact, in some metrics they are actually better predictors of success.

They also shockingly find that using SATs actually leads to a more diverse class rather than less.  When you think about it, it is not surprising that the SAT might find some very bright kids from lower income brackets that never got the kind of support they might have needed to do well in school.

Of course we all know the reason SATs are being banned is they have different results for different racial groups.  That very fact is just unacceptable for our leaders in higher education....

[BigJohn043]

I agree that not having the SAT shields universities from scrutiny and accusations of bias.  Given historic precedent, there is good reason to be suspicious of universities' motives here.  On the other hand, just because something can be reduced to a number doesn't mean that said number is an accurate measure of what you are trying to capture.  In fact, one thing about well measured variables like SAT is you can also measure the effect of factors that contribute to the scores.  There is, to give one example, a very strong correlation between household income and SAT score.





That's about a 400 point (~250 points scaled to 1600) between the highest and lowest family income levels.

Ultimately, I think how someone feels about schools having the increased flexibility that not using test scores affords them probably reflects whether they trust the schools to use that flexibility in a way that they approve or not.

BC

This is the least surprising chart ever.  In a modern society, intelligence is a key driver of success.  Intelligence is also highly inheritable.  It would be shocking if more successful families didn't have smarter kids who would do on average better on a test of intelligence like the SAT....

---

And if we are going to have this discussion at least lets use the best data.  The UC systems commissioned a bunch of their professors to examine their data.  Here is the resulting study:

https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-resea...report.pdf

The short answer is that SATs are predictive of college outcomes after taking into account HS GPAs.  In fact, in some metrics they are actually better predictors of success.

They also shockingly find that using SATs actually leads to a more diverse class rather than less.  When you think about it, it is not surprising that the SAT might find some very bright kids from lower income brackets that never got the kind of support they might have needed to do well in school.

Of course we all know the reason SATs are being banned is they have different results for different racial groups.  That very fact is just unacceptable for our leaders in higher education....